A Study in Silks (51 page)

Evelina was mesmerized. Her fingers closed over the rose petals—soft, sensual velvet. Nick said no words, his fingers grazing hers as she took the flower, and she felt the prickle of shared magic. Even if she could have heard him speak over the wild audience, nothing was necessary. Everything was clear.

She’d been blinded by memory, not seeing the present. In their years apart, he’d transformed into a magician of air and steel. She had risen to new heights, but now she understood that he had, too. This was his kingdom, and he ruled it.

I see you now
. A tremor passed through her, followed by a flood of unwelcome heat. His sheer physical prowess made her mouth go dry.

She raised the rose to her face, breathing in its scent. Nick made a graceful bow of his head, finally breaking that dangerous
gaze. He spun the gray mare, giving a final wave to the roaring beast of the crowd as the horse reared and snorted. And then he was gone.

Evelina fell as much as sat down. Her heart thudded as fast as the mare’s hooves.

“Good gracious!” Imogen exclaimed, fanning herself with her handkerchief. “So that is your Niccolo. My, my, my.”

Evelina gave a weak nod, and then touched Imogen’s arm. “Please wait for me here. There’s something I need to do.”

What she had just seen had broken her heart a little, or maybe it had just broken the fear around it. Now the past gripped her like a riptide. She had to see Gran.

LORD BANCROFT LOOKED ACROSS HIS DESK AT HIS SON. THE
tiger’s head mounted on the wall above somehow managed to mimic his expression, perhaps because it was frozen in its usual snarl.

“I received a note from Markham’s drapery this afternoon wanting to know whether or not Imogen wished to purchase a certain length of silk brocade, as there was another customer interested in the same bolt of cloth. I thought nothing of it at the time.” Bancroft’s fingers twitched.

“Imagine my consternation when, not a half hour later, Jasper Keating arrived in person and brought two items to my attention.” His father opened a drawer, pulling out the offending objects and setting them on the desk. One was a silver paper knife. The other was a calling card with Imogen’s name embossed on it.

“This,” his father pointed to the knife, “was pulled from the leg of the Gold King’s streetkeeper—some creature named Striker—just days ago. It came within an inch of severing the artery in his leg.”

“Unfortunate, but what is the significance?”

“Look, you dolt.” His father held it up so that Tobias could see the handle. “It bears the Bancroft coat of arms. According to the staff, it belongs in the guest room Miss Cooper is
currently using. I would like to know what it was doing embedded in the flesh of a back-alley thug.”

“Oh.” Tobias shifted in his chair, deciding he had best pay attention.

“This,” Bancroft poked the calling card, “was found in a warehouse belonging to Keating. One of his cousins, Mr. Harriman, runs it for him—and Mr. Harriman brought it forward to the Gold King’s attention.”

Bancroft’s mouth worked as if he wanted to spit. “Harriman was considerably upset by the fact that there was clear evidence of intruders in the place. He has, consequently, hired toughs to guard his person.”

Tobias doubted his sister could inspire that kind of response. There had to be more to this Harriman’s paranoia than finding a young girl’s calling card on his warehouse floor. However, he knew better than to interrupt the pater when he was on a tear.

Bancroft slammed his palm on the desk. “What, I wonder, was my daughter doing there? The only clue I have is that Markham’s Drapery is nearby, where Imogen was shopping
in the company of Miss Cooper
.”

His father put heavy emphasis on the last phrase. “Your function was to keep the girl distracted and out of our affairs, not to allow her to roam free and drag my daughter into God only knows what difficulties.”

Tobias opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it. He usually felt guilty about something—and probably was—but he couldn’t quite work up a feeling of responsibility for Imogen’s escapades. She was responsible for her own damned guilt, with or without Evelina helping her along.

His father gave him his special glare. “So? What are you going to do?”

Tobias wished he’d leave off about Evelina. He wanted her right enough, but not on his father’s terms. He took a painful swallow. “She’s an innocent girl, and our guest. Don’t expect me to dishonor her. I’m better than that.”

There, he’d said it. He’d stood up to his father.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Bancroft snapped. “Innocent girls don’t stab street thugs and go traipsing through back alleys.
I want to know what she thinks she knows about the murder of that wretched serving girl.”

The change of subject startled Tobias. “What does that have to do with Imogen?”

“I’m thinking it is time that Imogen learns to do without her. I want Miss Cooper gone by week’s end.”

Tobias frowned, not liking this turn in the conversation at all. “What makes you think she knows anything?”

His father glared.

What are you afraid she will find out?
Tobias wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. Instead, he took his turn changing the subject.

“What is it between you and Dr. Magnus? Why do you dislike the man so much?”

His father’s face turned to the color of ash. “Don’t ever speak to me about him. Ever.”

It was Tobias’s turn to narrow his eyes. A strange feeling was coming over him, almost a dislocation. He was used to being the one in the wrong. The one whose affairs were in disorder. Now everything was suddenly different, as if he were standing on solid ground and watching his father flounder for a change.

“Keep your mind on what’s important,” his father snapped. “Such as this attack on the streetkeeper with our knife. I can’t apologize to Jasper Keating for one more thing. Not if I intend to keep this family afloat.”

“Which is another way of telling me, sir, to behave like a cad,” Tobias said dryly.

“Why not? You’re good at such things, from what I hear.” His father swept the knife and card back into the drawer. “How hard can it be to distract one young woman?”

Tobias sat in stunned silence. He wanted to rage and bluster, but a horrible embarrassment stilled his tongue.
He’s guilty!

The only question was how deeply Lord Bancroft was involved in Grace Child’s murder. Tobias had a sudden urge to retch or get very, very drunk. Maybe both. His father had always been terrifying, oppressive, but he had been a standard,
the thing Tobias could never live up to. His father wasn’t supposed to be beneath contempt.

Lord Bancroft broke the silence. “Now get out of my study and do your duty to this family.”

And what is that?
Evelina was right when she said it would be hard to find his true path. After a life doing little beyond drinking, whoring, or building a giant squid, he wasn’t sure what to do next. He’d never been taught how to be useful. Quietly, Tobias got up and left the room, wishing he would never have occasion to return.

BANCROFT SCOWLED AT
the door as it closed behind Tobias. The last thing he needed was to give Keating another weapon to use against him, and there seemed to be no way to impress the importance of the situation upon his son. Why hadn’t he simply caught the girl in a secluded corridor and shown her what a strong, healthy young man was good for? Now even that expedient was too late.

The fact that the Cooper girl had been at the warehouse—no doubt dragging Imogen into the matter—was intolerable. The fact that Keating had arranged for her presentation was a complication, but surely she could be moved on after that. There had to be a polite way of showing a single nosy girl the door. And once she was out of the house, anything could happen to her. Something would, if Bancroft had his way.

He couldn’t take a chance that she would learn what had gone on at the warehouse. He wasn’t even sure he was content to let Harriman live. Unfortunately, it seemed that Keating’s cousin had second-guessed him there.

He’d told Tobias the truth about Harriman’s bodyguards. They were all over the weasel’s house now, and Bancroft thought he knew why. According to Harriman himself, the last crates had arrived in the early morning around the fourth of the month. Thinking they contained something especially valuable, the idiot had kept them underneath the warehouse and had not told Keating that the final pieces of the shipment had arrived.

That night Harriman had sent a coded message with
Grace. The message had disappeared along with the package of gold she was carrying, but two days later—and here things got interesting—Harriman had said the note didn’t matter. Bancroft remembered his words:
I’d read Schliemann’s letters about what was supposed to be coming. One or two really large pieces. The crates were so late, I wasn’t sure we’d have time to make copies. If everyone thought the crates were lost, we could just keep the contents
. But then he’d described the crates as nothing but pottery, jewelry, and plate.

A crafty look had crossed Harriman’s face right then. It had come and gone too quickly for Bancroft to be sure he’d seen it, but he’d been on the alert ever since. As it turned out, caution was justified. He’d produced the crates when Bancroft had ordered him to, but now something was missing—this thing Magnus had called Athena’s Casket.

Bancroft rose from his desk, staring out the window at the circular garden that graced the middle of Beaulieu Square. The garden was ordered, trimmed, the paint on the iron railings immaculate. He was filled with a sudden urge to run outside and dig his hands into the cold spring mud and tear that perfection to ruins. On some primal level, he wanted the outside world to match the chaos inside his mind.

What was this blasted casket? Magnus wanted it, and had approached Keating to get it. It had to be valuable. That meant both Magnus and Keating would be on the hunt—and the gods only knew what they would turn up in the process. But it was obvious that Harriman had melted it down and kept the gold entirely for himself.

So Bancroft had gone around to Harriman’s house, which was when he’d discovered that the little cretin had hired a pair of very dangerous-looking men to guard his modest town house. Only a trained eye would spot them, one smoking under the streetlamp, another drinking a glass of wine outside the shop across the way—but both had gone on the alert when Bancroft had approached. Evidently, Harriman was afraid he would figure things out and make a move.

Fury rushed through Bancroft at the memory, making him wheel away from the window. He didn’t want to look
outside, but inward, where he could nurse his rage. Anger was better than fear.

Magnus has the automatons
. There was no better bargaining chip to be sure Bancroft helped him get the casket from Keating.
But Keating doesn’t have it. There is no casket to get anymore
. How would Magnus react to that news? Would he give them back? Destroy them out of spite? Would he even believe the truth? With a shuddering breath, Bancroft buried his face in his hands, wishing he could scream in frustration without attracting a dozen servants.

Bancroft picked up his decanter and glass, setting them before him on the desk, but pausing there, his fingers tracing the elaborate geography of the cut crystal.

He was tempted simply to tell Magnus to go get his magical toy from Harriman and be done with it. Unfortunately, then he would have to explain more than he wanted Magnus to know, and Harriman was sure to squawk to Keating with some lie about being bullied into going along with Bancroft’s plans. There was no way to emerge the winner from that scenario.

What had started as an elegant plan to grab money and insert himself into the inner circle of aristocratic rebels had devolved into a house of cards that threatened to topple with the slightest gust of ill wind. Unfortunately, he had blowhards on every side. Bancroft, as the brains of the plot, had to stay the course until the forgery scheme was complete. There was one more piece, one more phase that he had to see through. One that, thankfully, Harriman knew nothing about. That was the way to do things—always have a trick up the sleeve that only you knew about.

Bancroft had started out as the fox stealing from the henhouse, and ended up as Reynard on the run. The only way he could survive was to duck between Keating and Magnus and let the two of them beat each other’s brains out over this mysterious casket.

Well, he was clever and lucky. It just might work. He wanted his share of that gold, and he absolutely had to retrieve the automatons from Magnus’s clutches. He could only pray that his luck held.

I’ll drink to that
. He lifted the stopper from the decanter and poured a measure into his glass. It tasted like victory, but unfortunately didn’t give rise to any brilliant ideas.

That thought drove him to another, and he picked up a letter that had been sent half in jest from an acquaintance at the club who knew Bancroft liked a bet.
Here you are
, the note had said,
the long shot of your dreams. A few of us contrarians are getting in the action. The odds don’t get any longer than an aging actress with no paint, nor lines, nor boards to tread. If La Reynolds comes out of this alive, the heavens will have set on the Empire as we know it
.